Richmond River Model Advances Northern Rivers Resilience
Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, has finalised a hydrodynamic model for the Richmond River catchment in the NSW Northern Rivers region and a technical report has been made available to support planning for future flood events.
The model was developed as part of the Northern Rivers Resilience Initiative (NRRI), led by CSIRO in partnership with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
The hydrodynamic model is the first of its kind built for the region, and represents water flows across more than 7000 square-kilometres of the Richmond River catchment, covering complex and varied terrain.
NEMA has published a technical report on the model, describing its setup, implementation, validation results, and all inputs and outputs for five historical flood events. Importantly, the report demonstrates that the model is reliable and can now be used for the next stage of the project; modelling flood mitigation interventions for the Richmond River catchment.
NEMA and CSIRO will be hosting community forums in the Northern Rivers from late July to early August 2025. The community is invited to meet the project team and share their flood mitigation ideas for the catchment. Registrations to attend will be made available through Eventbrite.
The technical report is available on NEMA’s website.
“With the development of a reliable and functional hydrodynamic model, we can now test flood mitigation scenarios using our best evidence-based understanding of the Richmond River catchment.
“This is the first time a catchment model of this scale and complexity has been built for the region, which will be critical to developing recommendations on future flood mitigation options for communities in and surrounding the Richmond River catchment.
“While this work takes place, NEMA, in partnership with the NSW Reconstruction Authority, continues to support the delivery of $150 million worth of projects across the region through the Northern Rivers Recovery and Resilience Program – some of which are already contributing to improved flood resilience in communities.”
“This is another win for communities in Northern Rivers, and this modelling will play an important role in our long-term goals to improve flood preparedness and flood resilience across the Richmond River catchment.
“While CSIRO is leading this important work, all levels of government will continue to work together to ensure that efforts to prepare communities for the next severe weather event are coordinated on-the-ground.
“Everyone is looking forward to the release of this technical report, as it’ll arm local councils with the best and latest information to inform current flood risk management plans. I’d like to thank CSIRO for their hard work to get us to this point.”
Vision, including a model simulation of landscape flooding for the entire Northern Rivers 2022 flooding events, is available on Dropbox.
The NRRI is an $11.4 million initiative that focuses on understanding climate, catchment and hydrological drivers in the area and also aims to find evidence-based ways to reduce flooding in the Richmond River Catchment following the devastating 2022 flood event.
The NRRI is currently in phase two and CSIRO has also delivered a LiDAR mapping for the Richmond and Tweed rivers and parts of the Brunswick River. Additionally, the landscape of the entire Northern Rivers Region has been mapped.
This mapping was released on 28 June 2024 and is publicly available through Geoscience Australia’s Elvis website.
Once the NRRI project has been completed, the hydrodynamic model will be made available to the NSW Government to assist in future planning activities and investment decisions.
https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/KristyMcBain/Pages/richmond-river-catchment-model-marks-next-steps-towards-northern-rivers-resilience.aspx